


All Applicants - Bonus Content

by justbolts



Series: Inquire Within [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Gen, Original Character(s), Prequel, Robot PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 17:14:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7722994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbolts/pseuds/justbolts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prequel scene to "<a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/312449?view_full_work=true">All Applicants Welcome</a>". </p><p>Bluestreak experiences the glitch for the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Applicants - Bonus Content

**Author's Note:**

> I did a request meme a while back, inviting people to ask for before or after scenes of fanfic I'd already written, and one of them was for the first time Bluestreak experienced the glitch. Like everything else with this fic, it stalled after the initial start, but since I was able to finish it up, I figured it was worth sharing.
> 
> The original character is the lawyer that is briefly mentioned in [Chapter 3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/312449/chapters/17144017).

"I don't understand."

It felt like he'd been saying that a lot lately. It wasn't something he was used to; he was a high ranking, well-off, highly educated citizen. He'd always had confidence in his ability to manage and resolve every situation he encountered through the careful process of research, analysis, logical reasoning, and decisive action. In the rotations since the... since the accident, it seemed as though the floor was constantly falling out from under him and there was nothing he could do about it.

"Everything's been auctioned off. What more could they want?"

Across from him, Afterdive's rigidly formal stance shifted to express mild sympathy. She had been his patrons' lawyer for vorn longer than he'd been functioning. She'd never been a demonstrative mech, but she'd always been polite to him and concerned for his well-being.

"Sliverstreak --" she began.

"Bluestreak," he corrected her. It was the third time she had used his former designation since being informed of the change at their previous meeting, and he suspected he could look forward to hearing it again with each successive encounter. 

Concerned didn’t, unfortunately, extend to respecting decisions she considered unnecessary or frivolous or non-beneficial to an ongoing case.

She paused long enough to highlight her lack of acknowledgement or apology, and continued. "You may have been absolved of responsibility for the falsifications in the financial record, but those records are all public now. Several companies and individuals that worked with your patrons were implicated. These companies are seeking to establish that your company --”

 _My patron’s company_ , Bluestreak thought.

“-- misled them into loaning or investing millions of credits they otherwise wouldn’t have. It is not about money at this point, but reputation. It is highly embarrassing to have be associated with such matters or caught out making bad deals and they are attempting to save face.” 

She stopped for a moment, watching him, and lowered her sensor panels from their standard high arch. It was the most relaxed stance he’d ever seen her in. 

“We will get through this,” she added, firmly.

“Am I going to have to go to court again?” Bluestreak asked. He kept his voice as calm and somber as possible, as he had since that first initial outpouring of grief and confusion in the hospital all those rotations ago. 

Afterdive had been the one to coach him on his appearance and self-presentation as what should have been a difficult, but clear-cut, inheritance process turned into a continuously unfolding nightmare. He didn’t feel calm, or somber, or quietly mournful, or anything else respectable -- he felt desperate. Frantic. Like he was trapped somewhere dangerous. The jittery, urgent need to move pulsed through him in time with his spark, making his panels rattle despite his best efforts to stand perfectly still. The reaction made no sense.

 _I’m fine_ , Bluestreak chanted in his processor, _It’s fine. I managed the last court case, I can manage another. I can do this._

Other thought threads ran concurrent to his efforts to self-sooth, a rushing current of; _I can’t, I can’t, please, no more, I can’t take this._

“Yes,” Afterdive said and Bluestreak’s ventilations increased involuntarily, “If we’re careful and we work at it, we can put together a case that will satisfy these companies’s needs for reparations, while preserving your company’s reputation enough to --”

“It’s not _mine_!” 

His vocalizer let out an involuntarily screech of feedback and then, all at once, his entire system just stopped. His hydraulics lost all pressure; his engine turned off and his internal batteries reported zero charge; his ventilation and cooling systems locked down, refusing to either circulate or intake air; his temperature soared to impossible heights.

_I’m dying, help me, help, I’m dying._

Except that couldn’t be true. He could feel his engine running and his vents dragging in air with increasing urgency, and his processor would’ve melted into so much slag if his temperature were actually that high, but the warnings and alerts kept coming. He couldn’t think past them, couldn’t access any of his usual processes or programs, couldn’t even move the body he was distantly aware of. This had to be what death felt like; trapped endlessly a single instance of utter, helpless terror.

*Emergency Reboot Initiated*

The world vanished and returned in the space of the same nanoklik.

Bluestreak was hunkered down on the floor of Afterdive’s office and everything was normal. His engine was warm from the recent hyper acceleration, but it was a typical and expected temperature hike. His batteries registered the same level of charge they’d had before whatever just happened. His programs ran several diagnostics in immediate response to his request, just as they always did, and his hydraulics, cooling system, and everything else pinged back with the usual ‘all clear’. 

He was not only fine, he showed no sign of an injury or malfunction that could’ve caused the problem.

“-- shortly. Bluestreak, can you hear me?” The sound of Afterdiver’s voice suddenly registered to Bluestreak’s sensors. In same the moment, his processor acknowledged and analysed the klik and a half of sensor data that loaded into his cache. She had tried to get his attention at first, and when he failed to do more than curl in on himself and vent uncontrollably, she’d resorted to repeating the same phrase over and over.

“Please remain still and calm, Protection Services will be here to help shortly. Bluestreak, can you --”

“I hear you,” Bluestreak said, lifting his helm to look at her. While wobbly with distress, his voice was normal, with none of the distortion from earlier. “What happened?”

Afterdive stood a short distance away, her expression and stance conveying only her usual reserved professionalism. At his question, she visibly hesitated.

“Protection Services has been spotted approaching the building," she said at last, "Please hold still, remain calm, and continue logging your functionality status for later reference.”

He stared at her for a moment, confused at the lack of a real answer, then realization dawned all at once. She couldn’t answer his question because, from her perspective, nothing _had_ happened. As far as she knew, he’d yelled unexpectedly and then gone non-responsive for no discernable reason.

And every one of his sensor files and diagnostic reports were telling the same story. He wasn’t hit by anything; he wasn’t knocked off his feet or pushed over; there was no sudden fire or exp--or event that could’ve caused a heat spike severe enough to impair normal processor function. None of his systems actually stopped working, not even for a nanoklik, and none of the errors he remembered seeing were recorded in his error logs. As far as those logs were concerned, he’d just run his engine too hard and over-pressurized his hydraulics.

The entirety of the situation hit him. He was crouched down on the floor of his very respectable and well known lawyer’s office - the lawyer he could barely afford anymore but who repeatedly waved away those concerns - in a busy and high class office building, trembling in the wake of a massive system crash that only existed in his memories. In a klik or so, Protection Service units were going to rush in to help him, find him completely healthy and unharmed, and give him a firm lecture about wasting community resources.

Bluestreak stood up so fast he almost fell forward.

“No, no, that’s all right, I don’t need them,” he said, the words tumbling together, “I’m fine, I’m really fine, it was just a - see I couldn’t - I mean, I heard you, I only needed - I heard you and I could even repeat exactly what you said and project my sensor data if you need me to, I really don’t think -”

“Bluestreak,” she said, shocking him into silence, “You’ve had major surgery very recently. Any and all aberrations in normal functioning must be taken seriously.” 

She took a step closer, and he thought - hoped - that she might put her hand on his arm or his shoulder in a gesture of reassurance. She didn't, of course she didn’t. It would’ve been completely out-of-character for her to extend that level of affection. She wasn’t like -- 

An unwelcome memory of who would’ve comforted him like that once rose in his processor and was quickly buried again, leaving his spark feeling crushed. He folded his arms around his bumper to alleviate the sensation.

“Please tell the Protection units everything you can,” Afterdive said. There was a commotion outside her office door.

Bluestreak agreed, and then repeated himself a few times with different wording, just to have something to say.


End file.
